


Witch Effect

by xenoglossy



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Yume Nikki | Dream Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:31:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/pseuds/xenoglossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Madotsuki saw the creature was in a dream. It shouldn't have stood out as strange there—her dreamscape was usually populated by beings far more bizarre than this little cat-rabbit—but something about it still felt wrong. Like it didn't belong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witch Effect

The first time Madotsuki saw the creature was in a dream. It shouldn't have stood out as strange there—her dreamscape was usually populated by beings far more bizarre than this little cat-rabbit—but something about it still felt wrong. Like it didn't belong.

It was standing on the roof of the shopping mall, looking out at nothing in particular. When Madotsuki approached, it cocked its head up at her, eyes gleaming in the overcast dimness.

"It's so gloomy here," it said. "This is one of the brightest places, and it's still cloudy."

There was a brighter place, but for some reason Madotsuki didn't feel like telling the creature about the soft, pastel world where Poniko lived. (Not the real Poniko, distantly friendly and preoccupied as she was now, but Poniko as she used to be, when they could still tell each other things.)

So instead Madotsuki just shrugged. "It's always been like this." Or if not always, at least long enough that it was hard to remember things being any other way.

She sat down, drawing her knees to her chest, and looked over the edge of the roof at the tiny buildings far below. The creature came up and sat beside her.

"It doesn't have to be," it said. "You could change it."

Madotsuki put her head down on her knees. "I don't know how."

"It's easy," it said. "All you would have to do is make a wish."

"A wish," Madotsuki said.

"And in return," the creature continued, "you could help me by becoming a magical girl."

Madotsuki thought of the brightly-colored heroines of love and justice from the cartoons of her childhood. It seemed absurd to imagine herself as one of them, ridiculous to think her problems could be solved with a sparkly transformation sequence and a speech about the power of friendship or something.

( _And yet_ , said a little voice somewhere inside of her, _what if they could? Wouldn't you at least want to try?_ )

"Well, I don't need an answer right now," the creature said. "Just think about it."

When she woke up, the details of the dream were hazy. She could no longer remember what they had talked about. But that in itself nagged at her—Madotsuki almost always remembered her dreams.

* * *

Madotsuki leaned against the wall of the bathroom stall and took deep breaths until she was pretty sure it wasn't obvious she'd been crying. _Pull it together_ , she told herself. _You have a class to get to_. That wasn't the best motivation: the thought of going back to class made her stomach turn. But she made herself straighten up and walk out of the stall all the same.

She had thought, or at least hoped, that she was alone in the bathroom—she'd gone to the most out-of-the-way one just to minimize her chances of running into anybody else. But she couldn't be so lucky, could she? There was Poniko, with her forearms propped on the edge of one of the sinks, looking at herself in the mirror. Not fixing her hair, not putting on makeup, just staring at her reflection as if she were looking for something there and couldn't find it. There were dark rings under her eyes, and she was slumped forward over the sink like she'd fall over if it weren't holding her up.

Madotsuki came up to the sink next to her and started washing her hands, and Poniko straightened abruptly and did the same. _Maybe_ , Madotsuki thought, _we can just pretend that this didn't happen, that we didn't see each other._

But as Madotsuki was leaving, Poniko called her name.

Madotsuki paused, hand on the door, and looked over her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Poniko asked.

"I'm fine," said Madotsuki. "Thanks."

Making her way slowly back to her classroom on the other side of the building, Madotsuki wondered if she should have had the courage to ask Poniko the same thing.

* * *

On her way home from school that day,  Madotsuki saw the creature again. It was standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, as if waiting for her. It looked up at her with unblinking red eyes and a fixed, catlike grin, and she pinched herself to see if she was dreaming. She wasn't.

"Don't worry," it said—at least, Madotsuki assumed it was the source of the voice. Its mouth didn't move. "I'm here to help you."

"Help me," Madotsuki repeated flatly.

"You're having a hard time," it said. "I can help you make things better."

Madotsuki narrowed her eyes. "What _are_ you?"

"Oh, that's right," the creature said. "I haven't introduced myself properly. I'm Kyubey. And you're Madotsuki, I know."

Madotsuki almost asked how it knew, but the thing appeared in dreams and talked without moving its mouth—who knew what else it could do?

"I don't know if you remember," it said, "but once I offered you a wish. I'm here to offer again."

Madotsuki watched Kyubey silently, waiting for it to continue.

"You could wish to make things better at school, for example. You could wish for more friends. I can see how lonely you’ve been, since your parents—"

" _Don't_." Madotsuki 's eyes darted frantically around to see if there were any passers-by who might have overheard. "I don't want to talk about this in public."

"Don't worry," Kyubey said. "There's no one around, and even if there were, no one can see or hear me but you."

"I see," said Madotsuki, her discomfort not quite allayed.

"Anyway, we don't have to talk about what you could wish for. It's all up to you to decide. The point is, you could make things better. All you have to do is make a contract with me and become a magical girl."

"What, exactly," Madotsuki said slowly, "do magical girls _do_?"

"Magical girls protect people."

"From what?"

"From witches."

Madotsuki stared at Kyubey for a moment. "Witches," she said at last. "Like with pointy hats and broomsticks...? Eye of newt and toe of frog?"

"Oh, no, these witches aren't like that at all," it said. "They're monsters. They hurt innocent people, and they can't be reasoned with. That's why we need magical girls, you see."

Madotsuki absorbed this information in silence. She allowed herself, for a moment, to picture being a normal girl with a loving family and a few good friends; to picture being happy. All of her troubles vanishing with the wave of a magic wand. It would be so easy.

Then she thought of fighting monsters, mindlessly destructive beings with powers she could barely imagine. Of all the lives that would be in her hands.

"I can't," she said.

Kyubey's ears drooped. "Are you sure?"

"I'm not really the hero of justice type."

"Well," said Kyubey, "if you ever change your mind, let me know. We're connected now. So if you call me—even if it's only in your mind and not out loud—I'll be there."

It bounded off into the shrubbery, and Madotsuki stood there for a moment, looking in the direction it had gone, trying to make sense of the encounter.

She heard footsteps, and turned to see Poniko coming up behind her. That was a surprise—Madotsuki went straight home after school, but she'd thought Poniko belonged to some club or other. Maybe she was going home early. Maybe she was sick. She kind of looked like it.

"Hey!" Poniko said, with a not-entirely-convincing imitation of cheerfulness. "You want to walk home together?"

Madotsuki had almost forgotten that Poniko lived nearby. "Sure," she said. She couldn't think of a good excuse to refuse, anyway.

They walked a little way in silence, and then out of nowhere Poniko said, "Do you ever feel like you want to go back in time and warn yourself not to do something?"

Madotsuki wasn't a wonderful conversationalist at the best of times, and this topic wasn't one she'd been remotely prepared for. The best response she could manage was, "I guess."

It didn't really matter, though, because Poniko went on as if she hadn't said anything. "Even if I could, though, I don't know what I'd say that wouldn't sound like some boring old cliché—like 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,' or 'always read the fine print before you sign.' Or 'be careful what you wish for.'" She smiled ruefully.

Wishes again. They seemed to be coming up a lot lately. "Because it might be dangerous, or because it might be disappointing?"

"Sometimes the things you think you want the most aren't worth the price you pay for them," Poniko said, and Madotsuki couldn't tell whether she was answering or just continuing her thought.

"What do you mean?" Madotsuki asked. For all that fifteen minutes ago she'd been talking to a strange animal from her dreams which had offered to make her a magical girl, this conversation might be the strangest one she'd had all day.

Poniko gave a short laugh. "Never mind," she said. "It's nothing."

"But..." Madotsuki began. She wasn't sure how exactly to continue, but Poniko didn't give her the chance anyway.

"Say, don't you think it's gotten warmer?" Poniko said, shrugging off her jacket. "Maybe spring is finally here."

* * *

The next time she dreamt of Poniko, it wasn’t the usual dream. Instead she saw Poniko fighting a succession of monsters, monsters which kept on coming even as Poniko grew increasingly battered and exhausted. She was wearing an odd frilly dress that Madotsuki had never seen her wear in real life, and on a chain around her neck there was a purple gem—beautiful and ornately set, but with a black stain which slowly spread as she continued to fight.

At last the stream of attackers let up, but any relief Madotsuki might have felt was short-lived. Poniko fell to her knees, and the black stain consumed the gem entirely. Madotsuki was just about to call out to her, run to her side, do _something_ —

And then reality twisted around her with a flash of light and a sickening lurch and she found herself in an endless white swamp under a featureless black sky. This world was _wrong_. The angles, the proportions, the dimensions didn’t add up. Madotsuki could see a misshapen black creature, but she couldn’t tell if it was nearby or far away. Blood gushed continuously from the creature’s mouth, and Madotsuki, feeling ill, turned away—

Only to see Poniko changing too, her form melting and expanding all at once into a mass of shadow with a huge, pale, grinning face. The thing that had been Poniko looked at Madotsuki without any hint of recognition, its eye sockets black and empty. Suddenly all Madotsuki wanted was to get away, but though she ran until her legs ached and her lungs burned and the thing that had been Poniko never seemed to move an inch, she couldn’t get any farther away, and the thing’s face twisted into an expression she could make no sense of, and a few tendrils of shadow detached from its main mass and reached towards her—

And a voice in her head that might not have been hers said _You could have prevented this, you didn’t have to let her fight alone, but you were too weak, you did nothing—_

And she woke up, sweating and breathing hard as though she really had been running, and wondered what it meant.

* * *

A few days later, Kyubey appeared at Madotsuki's bedroom window to ask her if she'd given more thought to being a magical girl.

 _I can help you make things better_ , it had said.

 _You didn’t have to let her fight alone_ , the voice in her dream had said.

 _Sometimes the things you think you want the most aren't worth the price you pay for them_ , Poniko had said.

"I need more time," Madotsuki told it.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Madotsuki sat up abruptly.  Had she heard a noise?

The night seemed still enough at first, and she thought maybe it had been a figment of her imagination, a lingering trace of a nightmare. But then it came again: a sort of high, ethereal screeching. Madotsuki shivered.

It felt unreal, as though she might still be dreaming after all. Maybe that was why she was brave enough (stupid enough?) to go and see what was going on.

On her way out, she paused in the kitchen and slid open the knife drawer. She selected the biggest, sharpest knife and took it with her as she made her way downstairs. It might not be any actual defense against whatever was out there, but its weight in her hand made her feel more secure.

When she stepped out the front door of the apartment building, she was struck by the horribly familiar sensation of the world shifting around her, and for a moment she was sure that she was going to end up in the white swamp again.

Instead, however, she found herself on a balcony overlooking a sort of great stone hall. The ground was very far away, but the ceiling was at least as distant, and stairs ran along the walls, twisting at dizzying and improbable angles. In the center of the room, seated on a golden throne, was a being that was more or less human-shaped, aside from its too-wide mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and its many, constantly-moving arms.

And there, darting around trying to evade the many-armed being’s reach, was Poniko, dressed in the strange outfit that Madotsuki had seen her wearing in her dream—and was that a gleam of purple at her throat?

She was putting up a fight, dodging the enemy’s attempts to grab her and firing back with what looked like darts or small knives made of shadow, but even from here Madotsuki could tell that her strength was flagging. Each dodge was a little slower, a little later than the last, and soon she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the attacks at all. Gripping the handle of the kitchen knife tightly, Madotsuki started making her way down the stairs, trying to ignore their strange twists and turns.

Just as Madotsuki reached the bottom, Poniko’s strength finally failed her, and she sagged back against a wall, her legs shaking. Her opponent saw its opportunity, and reached out a long, thin arm.

Madotsuki swung the kitchen knife down hard and felt the resistance as it met flesh. It had a strange, rubbery texture. She expected the knife to hit bone at some point, but it passed straight through, and the reaching hand fell to the ground. The stump didn’t bleed, but the enemy drew its arm back sharply, threw back its head, and let out a terrible screech. Was it pain? Rage? Hard to tell, but at least the thing didn’t seem to be attacking for the moment.

Poniko struggled upright. “Madotsuki, _no_! You can’t— an ordinary person can’t— you can’t defeat a witch!”

Then she fell back against the wall, her eyes closing. The gem around her neck had turned almost entirely black. Almost, but not quite.

_You could have prevented this. You didn’t have to let her fight alone._

Madotsuki knew what she had to do.

Almost as soon as she thought it, Kyubey was there, looking up at her expectantly. She looked down at it and drew a breath. This was it.

“I’m ready,” she said.


End file.
